THE SHASTA DAISY 



white in its petals as its distant Japanese 

 relative, not so large as its English cousin — he 

 would unite the three. In order that the very 

 best results might follow, he searched through 

 a number of states, as time and opportunity 

 offered, getting the best native wild daisies 

 from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey 

 and Massachusetts, and from these best ones 

 chose the best of them all. Sometimes, as 

 happened in several instances with the daisy, 

 he will be making a short journey by rail and, 

 looking out the window, may see, as the train 

 flashes by, some particularly striking patch of 

 flowers. At the next station he gets out and 

 either buys a ticket back to a station nearer 

 the flowers or walks back to them, and then 

 selects from them the choicest plants for use 

 in some experiment under way. 



So from three continents he chose a daisy, 

 the best he could get; — from them he made 

 a fourth, the most wonderful daisy ever seen. 



In setting out thus to make a new flower 

 out of old ones, Mr. Burbank does not depend 

 upon any rules laid down for him by some one 

 else. While he is never destructive but always 

 constructive, aiming to create new forms of 



J 33 



